AT LAST.

Ah! who shall render unto us to make

Us glad,

The things which for and of each other's sake
We might have had?

If you and I had sat and played together,

Love,

Two speechless babies in the summer weather,

Love,

By one sweet brook which though it dried up long

Ago,

Still makes for me to-day a sweeter song

Than all I know,

If hand in hand through the mysterious gateway,

Love,

Of womanhood, we had first looked and straightway,

Love,

Had whispered to each other softly, ere

It yet

Was dawn, what now in noonday heat and fear
We both forget,

If all of this had given its completeness,

Love,

To every hour would it be added sweetness,

Love?

Could I know sooner whether it were well

Or ill

With thee? One wish could I more surely tell,

More swift fulfil?

DINNA ASK ME.

Ah! vainly thus I sit and dream and ponder,

Love,

Losing the precious present while I wonder,
Love,

About the days in which you grew and came
To be

So beautiful, and did not know the name
Or sight of me.

But all lost things are in the angel's keeping,
Love;

No past is dead for us, but only sleeping,

A SPINNING-WHEEL SONG.

O, dinna look sae sair at me,
For weel ye ken me true;
O, gin ye look sae sair at me,
I daurna look at you.

When ye gang to yon braw braw town,

And bonnier lassies see,

O, dinna, Jamie, look at them,
Lest ye should mind na me.

For I could never bide the lass
That ye'd lo'e mair than me;
And O, I'm sure my heart wad break,
Gin ye'd prove fause to me!

DUNLOP.

A SPINNING-WHEEL SONG.

MELLOW the moonlight to shine is beginning;
Close by the window young Eileen is spinning;
Bent o'er the fire, her blind grandmother, sitting,
Is croning, and moaning, and drowsily knitting.
“Eileen, achora, I hear some one tapping.”

"'Tis the ivy, dear mother, against the glass flapping."
"Eileen, I surely hear somebody sighing."

"'Tis the sound, mother dear, of the summer wind dying." Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring,

Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot's stirring,

A SPINNING-WHEEL SONG.

Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing,

Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.

66

What's that noise that I hear at the window, I wonder?" ""Tis the little birds chirping the holly-bush under." "What makes you be shoving and moving your stool on, And singing all wrong that old song of The Coolun?" " There's a form at the casement- the form of her true love; And he whispers, with face bent, "I'm waiting for you, love.

MY LOVE.

Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly;
We'll rove in the grove while the moon's shining brightly."
Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring,

Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot's stirring;
Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing,

Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.

The maid shakes her head, on her lip lays her fingers,
Steals up from her seat, longs to go and yet lingers;

A frightened glance turns to her drowsy grandmother,
Puts one foot on the stool, spins the wheel with the other.
Lazily, easily, swings now the wheel round;

Slowly and lowly is heard now the reel's sound.

Noiseless and light to the lattice above her

The maid steps-then leaps to the arms of her lover.
Slower and slower-and slower the wheel swings;

Lower

and lower-and lower the reel rings.

Ere the reel and the wheel stop their ringing and moving,
Through the grove the young lovers by moonlight are roving.

MY LOVE.

JOHN FRANCIS WALLER.

I.

NOT as all other women are

Is she that to my soul is dear :
Her glorious fancies come from far,
Beneath the silver evening-star;
And yet her heart is ever near.